Psychologist receives Bronze Star

By
M. GREENGRASS

December 2003, Vol 34, No. 11

Print version: page 79

For his service during the war in Iraq, Air Force Lt. Col. Earl R. Nason, PhD, has been awarded a Bronze Star medal. Nason was the deputy director of the Manpower and Personnel Directorate, Ninth Expeditionary Force, stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

Nason's mission was to track 85,000 people at 32 different military installations in 24 countries, and the Air Force says he did his job well. "Through his leadership," the citation reads, "the Air Force achieved 100 percent accountability for the first time in a major theater war."

A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Nason also has a PhD in industrial-organizational psychology from Michigan State University. He is an 18-year veteran of the Air Force, and he was moved in September to the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, where he is currently chief personnel officer for the Air Force contingent. The command's chief of staff presented the Bronze Star to him in September during a ceremony at the base.

"I'm humbled," Nason told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "because I know there are so many men and women who did so much more than me, who will not be recognized."